Monday, February 14, 2000

Psych Students Learn More Through Distance Ed But Are Less Satisfied By SARAH CARR Undergraduates studying introductory psychology perform better in distance-education courses, but are generally less happy with them, according to a study by Ruth and Bill Maki, two psychology professors at Texas Tech University, in Lubbock. The professors, who are married, have offered a Web-based and a traditional version of an introductory psychology course for the past five semesters. At the end of the courses they and other researchers who are working on the study compare student results on the final examination and student-satisfaction levels in the two sections. Students in the Web-based version of the course have consistently scored an average of five percentage points higher on the final exam than those in the lecture course, the researchers reported in their study, which is awaiting publication in the journal Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers. But just as consistently, students taking the course over the Internet have reported that they are less satisfied with the course, the researchers wrote. "Overall, there is not a whopping difference, but each semester the students in the Web-based course do better on the exam, and these learning effects have been replicated across instructors and semesters," says Mr. Maki. Both the Web and traditional versions of the course used the same exam and textbook, although the structures of the courses differed in other ways. Students in the online course, for instance, completed weekly quizzes and assignments in place of the lectures that their counterparts attended. Each section had 25 students. Students also completed a pre-test and a post-test that examined their general knowledge of psychology. Those in the online courses improved an average of 10 percentage points between the beginning and the end of the semester, while those in the lecture course improved an average of five percentage points. Ms. Maki attributes the results to the differences in structure between the courses, differences she says were partly a consequence of the nature of the Web. While students in the lecture courses tended to study only the night before the exam, those in the Internet courses had to space out their studying in order to complete the weekly assignments. "The Web made it easier for us to use this structure," she says. "The students were able to get immediate and individualized feedback." Instead of spending time preparing and delivering lectures, the professors were able to spend time responding to and evaluating students on a more personal level. Students also had to put in more time to complete the assignments, which might be one of the reasons that they tended to be less satisfied with the Internet course. "Students do rate the Web course as being more work, and it is true that there is additional work because they had deadlines more often," says Ms. Maki. Mr. and Ms. Maki began the study because they were dissatisfied with the traditional mode of teaching students by lecturing to them, and wanted to see if they could improve results in an online course. Now they would like to shift directions. They want to focus instead on creating a battery of tests that could be given to students to determine the most appropriate mode of instruction. They have already begun to look at whether students with particular personality traits or skill sets fare better in Web-based courses. Preliminary evidence suggests that average students tend to reap the most benefit from online courses, says Mr. Maki. Good students do well in both traditional and Internet formats, and weaker students have difficulties in both. "Our goal would be to develop a short little battery that students could take up front when they expressed interest in a Web-based course, something that would tell them, 'You will really like this,' or 'You should be in a lecture class,' " says Ms. Maki. The questions explored by the Texas Tech study have been on the minds of other researchers as well. Thomas L. Russell, director emeritus of instructional telecommunications at North Carolina State University, says he has found more than 400 studies that purport to assess the quality of distance education. (See an article from The Chronicle, February 10.) While the Makis' study gives the edge to distance learning, Mr. Russell says the majority of studies he has read suggest there is no significant difference in the effectiveness of traditional versus distance instruction. Background story from The Chronicle: Scholar Concludes That Distance Ed Is as Effective as Traditional Instruction (2/10/2000) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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